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Image ID: text reading, "trans men are men, trans women are woman, nonbinary people are, and it's not up for debate," over a digital collage of a knit sweater and a train line infrastructure.

Image ID: text reading, "in the last 3 months, the word 'faggot' has been tweeted 2.6 million times," over a digital collage of myself eating a sandwich.

Content warning: sexual content Image ID: A blackout poem and a photograph, centered on a white square surrounded by black. The blackout poem is created from “A Winter Night” by Georg Trakl. It reads: “NIGHT / the / shelters of men / Oh the / taste. Your / figures. / stiff / with huge eyes / Onward! / Bitter / angel / Your trouser legs rustle / the ripe desire / bends down silently”. Below the poem is a black and white photograph of two mostly undressed men lying on the floor, with one man on top of the other. Image ID: A blackout poem and a photograph, centered on a white square surrounded by black. In the top left is a black and white photograph of a shirtless young man in white underwear smirking. He is surrounded by clothed and smiling men. To the right, there is a blackout poem created from “Reflections on Sin, Pain, Hope, and the True Way” by Franz Kafka. It reads: “SIN / THE TRUE WAY* / the / spring / of Paradise / we / return. / a continuous / revolutionary movement / the desire / no longer ashamed / a road in autumn: / a bird. / ascending”. Image ID: Two poems with a series of photographs and a painting, centered on a white square surrounded by black. Starting in the top left corner, a three-by-three series of black and white photographs show two men wrestling while naked. The ninth photograph in the bottom right corner has been replaced with a black and white copy of the painting “Two Figures (1953)” by Francis Bacon. In the bottom left corner are two poems on a handwritten notebook page. The poem on the left is a blackout poem. It reads: “silk & blood / toilet plunger / scrubbing bubbles princess / nails and polish prettiest girl at the party / bloody thighs semen / mouth / sinus infection / stick it in me baby make me a / man hole fuck porno pussy boy lick / the / tile / belt loops leather give me your”. The text on the right reads: “push it up push it up push up bra / buttercup bulletproof cumslut / kill me slowly sickly stick it in me.” Image ID: A white square with a poem surrounded by black. The poem is centered on the square. It reads: “Unlike gay men, / Few Americans know the taste of home.”

Image ID: "Unidentified Woman" is a poem based on a photograph from the Lorraine Hurdle papers. The photo was likely taken between 1942 to 1952. The photograph shows four women sitting on wooden bleachers. The bleachers appear to be located on a military base. In the front of the photo, on the first bleacher, a Black woman sits, holding a baseball in one hand, her other had covered by a glove. She looks off into the distance somberly. On the second bleacher, two women sit a few feet apart from each other. The Black woman on the left is Lorraine Hurdle. Hurdle is the only person in the photograph looking at the camera. Her expression is unreadable. The woman on the right is white with curly hair. She stares off into the sky. On the third row of bleachers, two women sit, facing away from the camera, looking at something to the left. They are both white. All of the women wear sweaters or long-sleeved shirts as well as pants. The overall mood of the photograph is tired, restless, and disharmonic. The photograph has been reproduced on a risograph printer, giving it an interesting texture overlaid across the photo.

Right now is the sweet beginning It hasn’t come in yet It’s all descriptions of light, land, branches, I’m oblivious to posture, oblivious to I, oblivious as, one at a time, the lines drop in to change things. Loneliness doesn’t scare me, it’s just stillness, I need it like my spine, which is connected to my hand, eventually, which has to move, eventually has to go somewhere. Four hours where I listen to cars pretend it’s the river washes the chirps away if there are any left. Forty-five minutes where I sit with water up to my chest and the sound washes from ear to crown to somewhere even higher and my hand moves only to scratch and fumble. Drips on paper and weakens it. One day there will be a dark spot in the distance, and we will all have to squint before deciding on its name. I bring my hand to the right side of my throat, swallowing the time I bargained for. I wish I could say it better.

From the start, they urged me to see, "To believe is to know. Perception is truth." But then they silenced my curiosity, "Hiding is wisdom. Rules mustn't be uncouth." As months passed, they waved red flags, "Politeness is key. Maturity is compromise." But I gazed up at the starry sky, free of tags, "Brightness shines true. Dawn is on the rise." Years slipped away, they discouraged my quest, "Time is precious. Some things aren't meant to be found." Yet I wandered under the night's behest, "Dreams are ambitious. They can't be bound." And here, in this city of design, Blind to the truth amidst the noise and strife. And here, upon this fated ground of mine, Lies hidden by clouds, hiding the true life.

i have the overwhelming urge to move away, but the problem is that i don’t know where to, and i don’t know where from i can’t move by myself, that’s one of the few things in this life that i know for sure, i’ve always had trouble being sure i want to move to a made up city and bring the good parts of my life with me the fourth dimension is lonely the mechanisms of my world exist only in black and white stagnancy or vivacity drought or drowning i am two souls, and they are friends, they are foes, they love each other to pieces, they want to rip each other to pieces they fit together like puzzle pieces, but they build an ugly picture i swing in every which way, on the spectrum of calmness and chaos i have with oiled wheels and a rocket strapped to my back, propelling me every which way sometimes there is a blip of time where i do not want to move away there is a blip where i am not erupting my emotions volcanically they don’t spew out of my mouth and eyes in an unstoppable flow it is a blip where i am not fighting a vacuum the two souls that fight for space in my body harmonize, and i finally get a taste of euphoric balance balance does not have a place in my brain, i am unfamiliar with her and i shoo her away when she knocks on my door but the second she leaves i am on my knees begging her to engulf me to eat me whole i want balance so badly that i will sacrifice my skin, sacrifice my eyes, all of my organs, my heart take a bite from my arm, i promise that i don’t mind, i won’t stop you i am not one person living two different lives i am not a million people living a million different lives i am a million different people living one life i live the same schedule every week i can’t tell if this routine is my sanctuary or the blazing inferno that dries out my lungs and throat and asphyxiates me in the middle of the street because of the panic that there is no way out i am vigilant over my sadness, i must be present else it becomes destruction, no end to justify the means rip my eyes out of my skull and i won’t go blind do with my body what you please as long as it’s you and me strike me and i will find love in the fact that you used an open palm rather than a closed fist my halves crave it they crave safety they will find it anywhere they find it under the floorboards, into the dirt they want to move away, to find new soil to bury themselves in, to find the comfort in the pressure lay over them, make them whole force roots out of me, shove them into the ground keep me here, please.

Trigger Warning: Violence, murder, manipulation, depressive themes, and drug use ENTRY XXI: I’ve returned from the most deadly trip: one where there was no violence but my inner turmoil and the subsequent loss of myself. In the weeks leading up to my departure, Ego described a part she needed known simply as the “Crystal of Wonder.” This stone, she detailed, was capable of generating its own electrical current and was a small source of renewable energy. She needed the part for a gun she was fixing, after it had been damaged in a fight. Unannounced to me, I was meant to retrieve this special stone for her. One day, after falling asleep on my uncomfortable spot in the lab –a torn and rotted couch– I woke up in an entirely new time and place. When I opened my eyes, I saw the most beautiful visage of a woman I’d ever seen. She watched me worriedly, waiting for me to move. Her name was Lauraine Beal. She helped me out of the coffin I had found myself in, and brushed off the roses I had been asleep under. Choosing to embrace the startling situation, I began joking and flirting with her. Lauraine took kindly to me, though notably confused. I spent the better half of a week with her, piecing together how and why I was there, and attempting to journal my time on notebook paper that has been subsequently lost. Nothing notable happened, other than my overwhelming crush on her. But it was while hiding out in her college dorm during her classes on the first day that I read the newspaper and realized something concerning: it was October 1955. It took a lot of contemplation for me to realize I wasn’t dreaming. My dreams had always been vague and distant, where I wasn’t able to make out all the details. I also ruled out the possibility of my experience being a forgotten memory, due to the vividness of it. Nothing felt familiar, and none of it was hidden or on the cusp of my knowledge...aside from my getting there in the first place. I was in 1955 with a girl named Lauraine Beal, who was a science student at Princeton University. She had a friend named Delores (Dee) who she was quite close with and who studied fashion. Dee was a big fan of Christian Dior’s “New Look” silhouette, and was quite startled by my particular appearance. She remarked once “you’d be quite handsome if not for that ragged look to you.” Lauraine, to my defense, told her “Angel’s got almost a James Dean look.” “Yeah, see where that gets him.” I tried to remember whether or not the actor had died yet. I chose my words carefully, to not give myself away to Lauraine’s friend. “Where will that get me?” “Six feet under the ground.” I thought back to the strange coffin I had arrived in, and sighed. During my week with Lauraine, I caught wind of the discovery of Ego’s “Crystal of Wonder” in Australia. Still feeling bound by Ego, I asked Lauraine about it. She told me that not only was this stone coincidently coming to Princeton to be studied, but there was a ball being held in November and the stone was to be on display. I’ve learned, in my time with Ego, that a coincidence is just a plot you’re too dull to be in on. This was a plot I was definitely meant to be in on. I convinced Lauraine to take me to the ball instead of her friend Dee. Lauraine wore a tight gold lamé dress with a plunging neckline. It was uncharacteristic of her thus far, which fascinated me. I wore a suit cooked up by Dee, but styled my hair and face according to my own taste. Upon our arrival, I could already feel a tension rising among the people there. It was the feeling one gets when the air grows still in the eye of a hurricane. I stayed alert, waiting for the perfect time to steal the crystal for Ego. It never came. I became less on edge and started enjoying my night with Lauraine. We danced and went outside where it was quiet. She led me into a secluded area and kissed me, sending a shock throughout my body. She then pulled away, and showed me a small rock tucked away in her bag. “I stole it,” she whispered. “Stole what?” “Your rock.” I gasped when I realized. I looked again and sure enough, she had gotten the rock. She shoved the bag at me with a grin. “Take this and go home to your year. I’m sure somebody misses you dearly.” I shook my head. “I don’t miss them.” She shrugged, “Everybody misses somebody.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget Lauraine, despite my confusion about the circumstances surrounding our meeting. When I woke up back at Ego’s, with Lauraine’s bag still in my inner coat pocket, I found myself saddened by what I left behind. It hurt more knowing it had been real than if it had all been a dream. I reluctantly surrendered the stone to Ego, and wondered both what came of Lauraine and the journals I had been writing during my stay. ENTRY XXII: I’ve found myself contemplating ways to leave Ego, but have come to the conclusion that if I surrendered for the time being and stayed, I could turn her scheme around on her. What advantages could I gain in her trust? Her lair has an abundant amount of ways to pass the time if you look thoroughly enough. I’ve found solace in taking Valiums to pass my ever-abundant time. ENTRY XXIII: I’ve decided to just give it up and pretend to be happy. Something interesting will come of it; more interesting than wallowing in my own self-pity. Besides, I have nothing left to lose. When I play her game I find myself getting rewarded anyway. I wonder what it will be like to be the servant Ego so desperately desires me to be. Will I lose even more of myself to her in the weeks to come… or will I gain something new entirely? It’s easier to try and live in ignorance than to live with the knowledge of my own suffering. ENTRY XXIV: She took me out to the city today, and for the first time in a long time, I found myself content with the experience. The warmth of the summer sun; the warmth of hot blood splattered across my face. The impressive and looming structures of the city; the equal mystique of my captor’s blade at work. The low hum of the city at night; the low hum of my heartbeat laced with adrenaline, and no longer fear. When she gave me her knife to cut down the last specimen, she watched me carefully. She saw my personal style emerge, and dared to question me on where it had been hiding within the whole time she had known me. I didn’t entertain her further with my response, taking delight in her gap in knowledge. Anything I can hold over her still entices me. ENTRY XXV: The nights feel as though they stretch on for days, like one perpetual hour folded in upon itself. In my haze, I find myself venturing out to Creation Forest. When I collapse, the creatures leave me alone. They have become familiar enough with me to have assessed me as a non-threat to their tired existence, and are clever enough to know my blood would taste of benzodiazepine and various other numbing agents. In my stupors, I have begun to have dreams. They are vague and vastly useless but starting to plague me. I’ll have several dreams across the span of a binge, and they will cause me to feel a rush of hope and rebelliousness I can’t afford to have. I’m worried that in my lightened state I will forget the responsibility I have to myself, that I will act rashly instead of stepping back, observing, and planning. I’m worried that I will act in all of my fear and all of my frustration and cause Alter Ego to have to kill me. And as empty as I feel, still a stranger to myself, I cannot let Ego win. One thing I can say I’ve learned of myself is that I’m incredibly spiteful of those who do me wrong. I’m equally nostalgic for those I love, whose faces my mind still doesn’t remember.

The moon was too big the night Mei got the letter. She unlocked her mailbox and pulled out a stack of coupons, letters, notices. She paged through the pile, reimagining her day, until her eyes landed on the envelope. She’d seen the envelope before, of course. On the desks of friends, of coworkers, even of managers. The worst was when a woman she’d slept with one too many times showed it to her. She hadn’t spoken to Annie since that night, and couldn't bring herself to watch the trial. She quietly went inside her building. Her apartment had never felt like home, a space a bit too small with a bed that folded into the wall. A palette of Jade cigarettes took up one half of the room, the other half being occupied by the small kitchenette. Fashion magazines, comic books, and dirty dresses littered the floor. The only solace of the space was her small balcony. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off of the palette and walked out onto the enclosure. The sky wasn’t dark yet, instead a hazy sort of pink mixed with blue. The moon felt like a spotlight from where she stood. She frowned and lit a cigarette, taking a long puff. She found herself wondering where Annie was now. She’d always been vivacious, lively, passionate. The day she showed Mei her letter, she looked scared. In that moment, Mei swore she lost all attraction to her. She set the cigarette down on the balcony ashtray and held the envelope up with both hands. The sky was still bright enough for her to read what it said. TO Mei Jiang, YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to be and appear before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives of the United States, or duly appointed subcommittee thereof, on Friday, February 4, 1949, at 10:00 o’clock a.m. at Room 226, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. She felt frozen staring at the text. That was a week before they were going to finish filming Canary Lovers. She couldn’t leave in the middle of production. But if she was blacklisted they’d halt production anyways. Or replace her. Even leads were replaceable. She felt a growing lump in her throat. She picked up her cigarette again and took a puff. What would happen to her advertisements? She had been working as a model for Jade cigarettes for over a year now and was practically the face of some of their recent ad campaigns. She’d actually thought things were changing in the industry after seeing a face like her own on a Hollywood billboard, but now… The scared look she’d seen on Annie’s face flashed through her mind. That nagging doubt entered her mind, built itself up in her chest. Did Annie… give them her name? She’d kept her affairs with women to a minimum in Hollywood, mostly entangling herself with charming men who had pathetic personalities, and Annie was the only woman she’d been with that she knew had been called in. Communist allegations were enough for her to lose her Hollywood career, but she knew there was nothing to back them up. Even if she was blacklisted here she might be able to find work somewhere. But if they were accusing her of being an invert… Her mother had always told her she took things too far. That she wanted too much, that she should be happy with what she had, with what she knew was safe. But she had always been proud of Mei too, at least Mei thought. She switched cigarette brands when Mei’s face first started showing up in magazine ads, and, even though she disapproved of Mei moving out to Hollywood on her own, she called everyone in the family to let them know when Mei first scored a minor role in a movie. But this, the letter that she held in her hands, this was what her mother had been afraid of. She stared up at the moon for a moment before putting out her cigarette. There was something oppressive about how big it was that night. She was reminded of the sweeping lights from police helicopters that occasionally searched the city and the exposure they scattered across the landscape. She tried to shrug it off, going back into her apartment. Mei thought about pulling the phone off its hook on the wall, about dialing her mother’s number. She could hear her voice in her head, scolding her for calling so late, saying that nothing could possibly be worth waking her up over. But then Mei would tell her. And then her mother would sound scared. And then she would sound angry because how could Mei let this happen and anger was an easier outlet than fear, then telling her how truly frightened she was for her daughter. The phone stayed on the hook. She placed the letter on top of the palette and pulled her bed out of the wall. She lay down, staring at the sky outside her window, now a dark blue. She wished she could see stars, but instead all she could see was that almost-full moon taunting her. She thought of Annie again and wondered if she still found her pretty, would she have watched the trial? She wondered if Annie’s husband stayed with her through the whole ordeal, sat with her and held her hand while the committee screamed at her. For the first time, Mei wondered why she hadn’t asked one of her handsome and pathetic boyfriends to marry her. She’d never been interested in commitment but now the idea of a man sitting beside her while she had to stand her ground seemed ideal. She wondered if Tom would say yes if she asked him. He was a decent enough man, and they’d shared almost as many real kisses as screen kisses. She closed her eyes, trying to picture herself walking down the aisle with him, trying to picture him sitting next to her in front of the senators. The tenseness in her shoulders lessened, the security from someone like him strong even in her imagination. She felt their shoulders pressed against each other, felt their hands tangled together. She squeezed, and her hand was squeezed back. She turned to look at Tom in her mind’s eye and— All she could see was Annie’s face. It was Annie’s hands tangled in her hands, Annie who sat beside her at the trial. And for the first time since she’d let Annie go, she found herself filled with sadness for her, for their relationship. She wasn’t the sort to cry. She wasn’t the sort to grieve. She curled up in a ball, trying to ignore how her feelings betrayed her, how her body betrayed her. She wept quietly. She wept and the only person who saw was the moon, rising higher in the sky, a quiet beacon over Hollywood.

I was born during the time of year where all the love and warmth from Christmas fades away into winter. Where the light of the sun nearly always meets impenetrable clouds, and when it can pierce through, the air still feels blue-grey like a spiderweb stretched thin, a veil. I live near the lake now; winter has stretched on and on for three years. I’ve been told that summers slipping into the clear teal water are worth the patience of waiting through the heavy weight of winter, but I’ve betrayed my efforts for two years now, choosing instead to slog back to the thick, boggy air of my hometown. The smell of the swamp burning like it did back in '08, called “stubborn and smoldering. ”It’s almost fitting I chose to go back. But not this summer. My roots have been willingly pulled up from sandy banks and slushy clay estuaries and now they sit on dense concrete and layers of history I’ve yet to fully unpack. The concrete and asphalt can be hard to see this time of year. Again we enter the extended vestiges of winter, when the heat of the sun reaches skin but not pavement, a loving note to hopefully last us until the winter is fully shaken off in May. Now we wait, as grainy salt is pestled into the ground, turning slate grey what was once a tacky, sticky black. I’ll watch as I wait, with wind-swept hair and cold chapped cheeks and ears, for my bus every morning, and I'll think of a time I wore darkly striped cotton sweaters in the beating heat of an embracing sun.

i think that the radiator in my house may be broken the temperature gauge is way off, its either much too hot or much too cold; cold air can cause water to freeze inside a radiator and cause it to burst i've learned that you need to shut off the water, contact insurance, and most importantly contact a plumbing professional if you’re facing a burst pipe this winter i found to be particularly cold the kind of cold where the wind threatens to gnaw your ears off but lacks the late nights when the world is silent with snow my disconsolate solace blood fills me like a bathtub my home was no longer warm the pipe had burst the cold air became too much, a radiator is not often prepared to take on so much frigidity at once for some, a burst radiator pipe is an inconvenience, my house was devastated it looked fine from the outside, passerbys wouldn’t know of the wreckage and debris that turned my once beautiful home into a skeleton adorned with fragments of what it used to be mourning, misuse, moving i considered moving moving is a big commitment and not a decision you should make when you have a burst radiator pipe but that home was unfit for a comfortable life painful to breathe, to move, to work, to sleep; my bedsheets were cold I considered moving. the gas pipe that lead to my house had shut off i didn’t know of the reason i came to the gas company with bloody and bruised knees, i am oxidized Begging Begging and grasping for anything i could get Red pavement red wallpaper red eyes My heart was under the wallpaper My laughter was hidden in the cabinets My eyes were in the support beams Haunted house, Mary in the mirror Reflect refract relapse I shouldn’t beg for the bare necessities But when you look in the mirror and don’t see yourself in the reflection Your nails find familiarity that keeps you safe and warm and clutches on like a father to his child Lose your radiator lose your home lose yourself

Bloody on the blanket And bleeding out Sopping wet and pathetic And you want to hold it You want your arms With cuff cuff muscle Muscle you rip through And when you rip, it’s just the book page Tree flesh they tore out And ink black blood Take it in stride And you’re bleeding on the blanket Opinionated You ate it spat it out and ate it When you knew the tongue When you grew the tongue It’s the bucket you kept in the corner It’s the corner, it’s self, two plane collision It’s the first mess It’s kissing on the mouth, It’s needing a drink to kiss on the mouth It’s what about me It’s too much of this, too little of that And it’s lying down flat